This invention relates to an automatic message announcement system, particularly to an automatic announcement system suitable for automatically announcing messages in the premises of a railroad station.
Usually, train information is announced at the platforms in any railroad station. The announcements are usually performed by a person in charge of the relevant platform, but recently such announcements have been carried out automatically for labor saving purposes.
In the case of an island-type platform which allows departure or arrival of "up-trains" on one side and "down-trains" on the other, both an up-train and a down-train often arrive at the same time, or one train leaves as another train arrives. In such cases, existing automatic announcement service systems cannot perform adequately. For example, if an up-train has arrived and immediately after that a down-train arrives, existing automatic announcement service systems will announce the arrival of the up-train and then announce the arrival of the down-train. In existing automatic message announcement service systems, messages of predetermined length are recorded onto a magnetic tape and relevant messages are all announced in accordance with the approach, arrival and departure of trains.
Therefore, if the arrival of the down-train is announced after completion of the announcement for the arrival of the up-train, as explained in the above example, a considerable time may have passed after the down-train has arrived at the platform. This delay may be distasteful to the passengers, and such announcement services cannot be said to be sufficient. Such disadvantages are also observed during announcements for train departures and approaches, in addition to the case of train arrivals.